Indie Publishers Association of Taiwan

This Side of Paradise (1920) is Fitzgerald’s first long Fiction, also the autobiographical one. It is his very first work giving the description to a young guy who is living in the swing times. This Fiction is engaged with American history and culture, and, simultaneously, the life of the protagonist, Amory, reflects the national history of United States in certain extent. The characters in the Fiction are arbitrary and unleashed, craving for the romantic and hedonic life. A typical picture of swing times is accurately narrated, especially the life out of traditional manners and rules, desiring to get rid of bondages and to indulge in hedonism. With Fitzgerald’s subtle observation, this work won many readers’ applauses and recommendations in the contemporary times.

The hero of this book, Amory, is a typical romanticist. He is a naive college student, lack of the epistemology of reality. Along with the defeats and discouragements, Murray first encountered what his college mate in Princeton University sacrificed in the battle, and then found out his talented, ambitious classmate died in a car accident. His dissatisfaction grew stronger after he started the job in an advertisement agency. With all the reasons gathering at the same time, this Romanticist, or we could call him an egoist, endeavored to analyze himself over and over. Consequently, he went back to the track of pop culture and made a revolutionary comment on communism. Amory is ready to unveil the fight against American capitalism society.